Copyright Notice
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to computerized systems and methods for offering to sell entertainment tickets over a network. More particularly, the invention relates to systems and methods that collect and list entertainment ticket information from multiple data sources, and facilitate the sales of entertainment tickets over a network.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, the rise of the Internet has led to an increase in the popularity of shopping and purchasing over the Internet. While remote shopping and purchasing has been available for many years in the form of catalogues, shopping channels on broadcast or cable television, or over the telephone, the presentation of information in such an environment is limited and static, and is not user-interactive. The shopper is not able to return to a previous section of the program in order to review information or availability of a product or service. A shopper may only be interested in the availability or a particular aspect of the product or service, but there is no way for the user to choose which information of the product or service are to be reviewed. In addition, it is difficult for the user to increase the speed of the transaction, since the information which is vital for the transaction (e.g., price, terms, availability, etc) is usually not available until the end of the presentation of the product or service.
The Internet has solved some of these problems. Shoppers are able to interact with online catalogues or shopping malls in a variety of ways. The Internet has fewer restrictions and permits a more user guided electronic shopping experience. A user may browse the Internet about upcoming entertainment exhibitions (e.g., movies, concerts, theater, dances, art shows, museum exhibits, sporting events), the user may collect information for the upcoming entertainment exhibitions, such as exhibition locations, exhibition times, ticket and/or space availability, ticket prices, and the like. More importantly, the user may also purchase tickets for the upcoming entertainment exhibitions over the Internet via entertainment ticket providers such as Fandango™ and MovieTickets™. However, such entertainment ticket providers provide incomplete coverage of available ticketable entertainment exhibitions at a single site.
In the view of the foregoing, there is a need for improved solutions for offering to sell entertainment tickets. For example, there is a need for computerized systems and methods that collect and list entertainment ticket information from multiple data sources at a single site, and facilitate the sales of entertainment tickets. Moreover, there is a need for improved systems and methods that provide more flexibility and options to end users.